William stanley jevons biography of mahatma
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Substantial terms, such as ‘gold’, denote substances. Jevons does not define the concept of “identity”, and tends to regard it as self-evident. This was an investigation of the effect of the gold discoveries in Australia and California upon the prices of commodities. Journal of the Statistical Society (September); (1871).
“General Introduction”, in Collected Economic Writings of W. S. Jevons, 9 Volumes, London: Palgrave/MacMillan, pp. Jevons `was not the first to plot economic statistics in diagrams', said Keynes, but `he compiled and arranged economic statistics for a new purpose and pondered them in a new way'. The data suggested too many different causes.
The Manchester School, 50, 354-65. The method of indirect inference can be used to describe a class of objects or a term, given certain conditions. All processes of inference are based on the principle of substitution. According to Jevons this is the most important scientific procedure, as “a great mass of scientific truths consists of propositions of this form A = AB”.
The first approach entails the application of the ‘inverse method’ in induction: if many observations suggest regularity, then it becomes highly improbable that these result from mere coincidence. To facilitate this kind of reasoning Jevons developed a logical abacus, which operates on simple mechanical principles. The State in Relation to Labour, London: MacMillan.
The remaining terms may be equated to the term in question.
Jevons introduces the logical alphabet – a series of combinations that can be formed with a given set of terms. Substituting and rearranging yield the desired result A = AX. Statistical journals published tables and numbers, but graphical representations and analysis remained absent.
“The Conception of Jevons' Utility Theory,” Economica, 20: 356–8. “Statistical and Social Facts from Quetelet to Durkheim,” Sociological Perspectives, 38(1): 15–26.
William Stanley Jevons 1835-1882: A centenary allocution on his life and work as economist and statistician. Manchester School of Economics and Social Studies, 7.